Variation on a Theme

I stumbled upon this the other day and thought it worth putting into my daybook. It echoes both the Obama presidential campaign, with its lovely defiance of the status quo, bubbling with hope for the human condition together with that pesky koan “Stop the distant temple bell,” an invitation to explore boundaries, truth, and, very much who I am, and what I can be…

Variation on a Theme by Rilke (The Book of Hours, Book 1, Poem 1, Stanza 1)

by Denise Levertov

A certain day became a presence to me;
there is was, confronting me – a sky, air, light:
a being. And before it started to descend
from the height of noon, it leaned over
and struck my shoulder as if with
the flat of a sword, granting me
honor and a task. The day’s blow
rang out, metallic – or it was I, a bell awakened,
and what I heard was my whole self
saying and singing what I knew. I can.